A color digital image is typically displayed in the form of three arrays of binary numbers. Each array (or “image plane”) represents an axis of a suitable color coordinate system in accordance with the well known trichromatic theory. The color of a pixel in the digital image is defined by an associated binary number (defining one of three color components from the color coordinate system) from each array.
The amount of data used to represent a digital image is able to be extremely large. For example, a color digital image with 1024×1024 pixels would require 3 megabytes of storage if the pixels are represented in the computer by three image planes of 8-bit numbers. The large amount of data required to represent a digital image in a computer is able to result in significant costs that are associated both with increased storage capacity requirements, and the computing resources and time required to transmit the data to another computing device.
In efforts to reduce these costs, digital image compression techniques have been developed. These digital image compression techniques are generally able to be used to reduce the amount of data required to represent a digital image in a computer. These techniques are also able to reduce the computing costs associated with storing and transmitting digital images. There are, however, significant costs, such as diminished quality, that are able to be incurred in using these compression techniques.